President Donald Trump’s move to decertify the Iranian nuclear Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), entered into a little over two years ago, was applauded by Israel, Saudi Arabia and a couple of Persian Gulf States, but by no one else. Quite the contrary, as the European and Asian co-signatories on the agreement, having failed to dissuade Trump, have clearly indicated that they will continue to abide by it. Also, the decision to kick the can down the road by giving Congress 60 days to increase pressure on Tehran in an attempt to include other issues beyond nuclear development like its ballistic missile program and labeling the country’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group are likely to create confusion as Washington is unable to communicate directly with Iran. That uncertainty could possibly lead to a fraught-with-danger Iranian decision to withdraw completely from the agreement.

For many years, I have held two shares in America’s only publicly owned major sports team, the Green Bay Packers. There are no dividends, no special seats, no stadium perks. I cannot sell the shares. I can only pass them on to immediate family. But owning these shares does in fact make me a part-owner. And as such, I am registering my first demand: The Pack must hire Colin Kaepernick.

Kaepernick’s pathbreaking “take a knee” before the national anthem guarantees him an historic place in the civil rights hall of fame. Begun last year, it is a carefully considered,well-timed, and very public call to pay attention to ongoing police brutality toward black people in this country.

An hourglass with a skyline at the bottom and a mountain in the top with the words an Inconvenient sequel truth to power

Monday, October 16, 2017, 7:00 – 8:45 PM.  Environmental Film Series.  Screening of An Inconvenient Sequel with lively discussion led by leading OSU and local experts.  Al Gore shares how close we are to a real energy revolution.  Location:  Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering & Chemistry (CBEC), Room 130, 151 W. Woodruff Ave., Ohio State University.  Details at epn.osu.edu.   (Free pizzas and beverages @ 6:45 PM.  Sponsored by the School of Environmental and Natural Resources & Office of Energy and Environment.  

Monday, October 16, 2017, 4:30 - 6:30 PM.  Learning From Your Community: The State Of Free Speech And Civil Progress In Ohio.  This panel will discuss the state of free speech in Ohio and at Ohio State, as well as how to proceed civilly while honoring marginalized voices. This will be followed by a Q&A/discussion. The organizations helping sponsor this include ACS, the Multicultural Center, NICD, Sustained Dialogue, and the Council of Student Affairs.  Location:  Moritz College of Law, OSU, 55 W. Twelfth Ave, Columbus, in Saxbe Auditorium.  

“Dear NFL: We will not support millionaire ingrates who hate America and disrespect our Armed Forces and Veterans. Who wins a football game has ZERO impact on our lives. Who fights for and defends our nation has every impact on our lives. We stand with the Heroes, not a bunch of rich, entitled, arrogant, ungrateful, anti-American, degenerates. Signed, We the people.”

In The Secure and the Dispossessed, Nick Buxton and Ben Hayes have collected an unflinching survey of a species gone mad. The book’s subtitle is “How the Military and Corporations Are Shaping a Climate-Changed World.” In short, the Authoritarian Exceptionalist Military Corporate Complex is flamboyantly recognizing the hole it is in, and exponentially increasing the rate of digging, while hiring PR firms to redefine “digging” as “robust engagement in advanced resilient green initiatives that save us all by further enriching the rich, militarizing the world, and rendering the earth uninhabitable.”

Bald black man with hands folded in front of chin, wearing glasses and with a gray goatee against yellow background and some words

Resistance and Black Liberation in the Age of Trump
Saturday, October 14
2:30-4pm
A+ Arts Academy, 270 S. Napoleon (near Lowe's in Whitehall)
Join the Black Caucus of the Ohio Green Party in a conversation with Human Rights Activist Ajamu Baraka.
Mr. Baraka is an internationally recognized leader of the emerging human rights movement in the U.S. and has been at the forefront of efforts to apply the international human rights framework to social justice advocacy in the U.S. for more than 25 years. He will be in Columbus, Ohio to engage and encourage our community in light of the recent incidents of police brutality, ongoing concerns about socio-economic conditions, and rise of activism in our city.
Admission is FREE

A black figure behind gray bars like a jail cell

Over a hundred concentration camps now colonize Ohio’s landscape including a federal prison, 87 county jails, 25 state-funded adult prisons, three privately-operated adult prisons, seven juvenile prisons and five Immigration Custom and Enforcement cages. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, “...every state in this country is more likely to incarcerate its residents than almost every nation on this planet.” Ohio’s incarceration rate is greater than the incarceration rates of Cuba, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Vietnam, Zimbabwe, Iraq, China, Haiti, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria, or Pakistan. The State of Ohio has approximately 262,000 people on probation/parole, 50,257 adult prison inmates (ODRC, Sept 2017) an estimated 18,190 jail inmates and 505 juvenile inmates. Its adult prison population is superseded only by Pennsylvania (50,580), New York (50,864), Georgia (54,353), Florida (99,119), California (131,436), Texas (147,053) and the Federal government (196,500).

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